Category: News Feeds

History is rhyming hard today! As Republican Senators prepared to close out the only impeachment trial ever without witnesses, President Donald Trump was served with a demand to turn over a DNA sample in a sexual assault defamation case.

Elle advice columnist E. Jean Carroll, who says she was raped by Trump 24 years ago in a Bergdorf Goodman’s dressing room on Fifth Avenue (of course), has scheduled a March 2 cheek swab for the president at the LabCorp closest to the White House. The appointment is at 9 a.m., but if this cuts into his Executive TeeVee-n-Twitter Time, “another location convenient for Defendant” will suffice.

Carroll, who told acquaintances about the rape at the time, is one of at least 25 women who have accused the president of sexual misconduct. Trump has denied the allegations, saying Carroll is “not my type” and claiming he “never met this person in my life,” despite a photograph of them laughing together at a party. She then filed a defamation suit, claiming Trump had smeared her by calling her a liar who was just trying to gin up publicity for her book.

Carroll kept the black Donna Karan coat dress she was wearing the day of the alleged assault and recently sent it for forensic analysis at a lab in California. After Trump’s date with the lab tech, which will doubtless be delayed by several rounds of court filings, she hopes to match it with male DNA found on the sleeves and hem of the dress. Carroll says the only time she ever wore it after the assault was when she was photographed for New York Magazine’s story about her allegations. The participants in the photo shoot, whose names are redacted in the pleading, have also been tested for elimination purposes. The analysis does not suggest the presence of semen on her clothing, which is consistent with Carroll’s account of fighting Trump off and fleeing moments into the attack.

The echo of the infamous blue Gap dress worn by Monica Lewinsky in 1997 is inescapable. Independent Counsel Ken Starr, who argued this week that impeachment witnesses were a gross violation of the constitution, secured a blood sample from President Bill Clinton in 1998 and matched the DNA to the semen on the White House intern’s dress. But this time around, instead of a vicious manipulator like Linda Tripp, who told the 23-year-old Lewinsky that she shouldn’t wear the dress anymore because it made her look “really fat,” but that she should keep it unwashed “for your own ultimate protection,” Carroll has iconic civil rights lawyer Roberta Kaplan, a partner at Kaplan Hecker & Fink, to advise her.

Kaplan has already batted aside Trump’s pathetic efforts to duck the process server and then declare himself a Florida Man, immune to suit in New York’s court. Monica Lewinsky may have floundered with a California med-mal attorney, unused to the bare-knuckles cage match of DC and New York, but Kaplan is not new to this game. It might take her a minute, but she’ll get that cheek swab. But before that happens, look for Trump’s lawyers to assert any number of inane defenses.

Will they claim executive privilege over the president’s biological material? Call it national security risk to have his DNA analyzed? Assert absolute immunity to civil process under an OLC memo conveniently magicked up by Bill Barr?

Safe money is on ALL OF THE ABOVE.

PLAINTIFF’S FIRST NOTICE TO SUBMIT TO PHYSICAL EXAMINATION TO DEFENDANT DONALD J. TRUMP [via NYT]

We’re coming up on that time of the year when the legal tech community descends upon Chicago for ABA TECHSHOW because who doesn’t want to be on the shores of Lake Michigan in February?

On Wednesday, February 26, after the TECHSHOW welcome reception, join us at Centennial Chicago as Above the Law and ETL host our third annual networking reception so women leaders and allies can find and support each other in the tech community. Be sure to sign up here!

An opt-in attendee list will be shared with registrants so attendees can find, hire and buy from women and 100 percent of registration fees will be donated to the Domestic Violence Legal Clinic of Chicago.

Want to see pics from the event last year? Well, we’ve got ’em.

Hope to see you there.

During yesterday’s impeachment trial, Rand Paul tried to pull a fast one.

The senator from Kentucky has a hard-on to unmask the whistleblower who first sent a complaint to Senator Richard Burr and Congressman Adam Schiff over Donald Trump’s behavior vis-à-vis Ukraine foreign aid. Yes, of course there is a compelling public interest in keeping the identity of whistleblowers confidential. And yes, there’s a whole network of federal legislation build around the premise that confidentiality is essential to stem corruption. But all that just goes out the window when there’s a chance to own the libs.

So yeah, Rand submitted a question during the impeachment trial to the presiding officer, Chief Justice Roberts, naming the whistleblower. But Justice Roberts was having none of that ish, saying, “The presiding officer declines to read the question as submitted.” Rand reportedly stormed out of the chamber.

But unfortunately we live in the worst timeline, and Rand was not content to merely accept the rebuke. No, of course not. As HuffPost reports, he held a press conference throwing out names like it’s of no consequence:

Paul then stormed out of the chamber and held a press conference where he twice said the name of the alleged whistleblower ― whose identity has not been confirmed ― as well as another individual but insisted he was not outing anyone.

“I think this is an important question, one that deserves to be asked, and makes no reference to anybody who may or may not be a whistleblower,” Paul told reporters.

This farce of a trial is expected to reach its conclusion today, without calling any witnesses.

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Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, and host of The Jabot podcast. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter (@Kathryn1).

Is my argument as strong as it can be? Are there better cases out there? And did I find every weakness in my opponent’s argument?

These types of questions can slow you down, but they don’t have to. Watch this webinar to get a first-hand look at the most advanced AI-based project Thomson Reuters has ever tackled: Westlaw Edge Quick Check. Quick Check goes beyond traditional research methods to uncover relevant authority that may have been missed. Hear from one of the creators of Quick Check how this feature is helping researchers practice with a new level of confidence in their own work, gain a strategic advantage against their opponents, and  ultimately deliver superior client value.

Legal research will never be the same.

If it seems like Highland Capital Management is always in court, that’s because it is. The hedge fund and founder Jim Dondero are always suing or getting sued by some party or other: Dondero’s wife, not one but two former employees, its idiot investors, its creditors, us. Oh, and its bankers, who have just won a really nice-looking judgment against Highland.

Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Marcy Friedman ordered two funds affiliated with Dallas-based Highland to pay $520 million in damages and another $520 million in statutory interest resulting from their refusal to cover UBS’s losses under a failed agreement to securitize collateralized loan obligations and credit-default swaps in 2008…. According to the amended complaint, UBS was owed more than $686 million by the time Highland’s affiliates defaulted on their obligations and UBS terminated the deal in December 2008….

UBS is seeking punitive damages on those claims, potentially exposing Highland to billions more in further liability if the case goes to trial.

The Senate appears ready to reject witnesses and new evidence today in the impeachment of President Donald Trump, but lawyers who swore to “protect and defend the Constitution” when they were admitted to the bar stand at the ready to demand that senators uphold their oaths to “do impartial justice according to the Constitution and laws” that they swore to in connection with this trial.

Today, Lawyers for Good Government, along with Lawyers Defending American Democracy, Lawyer Moms of America, and Demand Justice will join together in solidarity to protest on the steps of the Supreme Court in an effort to demand that every United States Senator fulfill their duties and obligations to our country.

Hundreds of lawyers will walk to the steps of the Supreme Court where they will symbolically “file” this 95-page document — an open letter to the U.S. Senate and all Americans, accompanied by assorted materials on impeachment and the Constitution — by stacking one on top of the other, to eventually form a towering pillar. They will then hold a press conference next to the stack of documents to explain why it’s so important for each and every senator to “do impartial justice.”

Here’s an excerpt from the open letter:

Senators: Your duty to “do impartial justice” as judges and jurors in trying the impeachment of the President of the United States is a grave responsibility. Of all 330 million Americans, this duty rests only on the 100 of you.  

The American people are depending on you to uphold your oaths and “do impartial justice” as you swore to do. Your actions as jurors in the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump will be judged by the American people. The impact of your actions will be felt not only by those alive today, but by future generations of Americans.

We implore you to act not in the best interests of one political party or another, but in the best interests of the people of the United States of America.  

If you’re unable to attend the protest event today but would like to add yourself as a signatory to the open letter, you may do so here.

The protest will be livestreamed from the Lawyers for Good Government Facebook page, starting at around 12 p.m. We will provide an update here with video if possible.’

Join your fellow lawyers today — in any way possible — to demand “impartial justice” in the impeachment trial of Donald Trump. The nation is counting on you.

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Staci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.

Ed. note: Please welcome Lorelei Laird to the pages of Above the Law. She’ll be writing about the current state of immigration law in America.

From the moment Donald Trump descended that gilded escalator in 2015, he’s made it clear that he believes Latin American immigrants are criminals.

“When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best,” said the least racist person you’ve ever met. “They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists.”

So if the crime is “immigrating while Latino,” perhaps it’s fitting that the punishment is a burrito. According to the Phoenix New Times, a packaged burrito given to immigrants in Customs and Border Protection holding cells around Tucson is making a disproportionate number of people sick. (These are not the longer-term ICE jails that people arrested within the U.S. go to, but the concrete and chain-link cells that you’re probably familiar with from the summer of family separation.)

According to Dr. Timothy Dorner, who sees recently released immigrant families at the Catholic Community Services shelter Casa Alitas, about 80 percent of people who eat the burrito report abdominal pain. “Luckily,” however, a significant number of immigrants say they couldn’t eat in CBP custody because the food was so bad. The problem is so widespread that Casa Alitas director Teresa Cavendish says her clients regularly declare, “No more burritos!”

The burritos come from a local company, but doctors who work with the just-released migrants believe the problem is not the source so much as the fact that CBP doesn’t bother reheating them. Dr. Stephen Thompson told the Phoenix New Times that migrants tell him the burritos are “still frozen or cold.” His colleague, Dr. Susan Thompson, added, “And who knows where they’re storing them once they’re thawed?” (Very few people, because CBP rarely permits lawyers, volunteers, or the press inside.)

As the alt-weekly notes, the burritos are just the latest in a long line of accusations that CBP holds immigrants in subhuman conditions. This is not the first allegation that the food provided is frequently half-frozen, and the immigrants themselves are also frequently half-frozen because of a CBP policy of air-conditioning the cells to frigid temperatures. To ensure that this is as punitive as possible, CBP takes away any outerwear they may have, along with their medications, money, identification, and any other personal property they’re not actually wearing.

According to a 2015 lawsuit from the ACLU of Arizona, CBP also keeps the lights on 24 hours a day and does not consistently provide medical care or diapers. There are no showers, no soap, and sometimes no running water; a woman in a Texas CBP holding cell told lawmakers last summer that a CBP officer told her to drink from the toilet.

CBP spokesperson Meredith Mingledorff told the Phoenix New Times that if the agency is not heating food properly — she appears to have much more doubt than the people who have directly experienced it — “we will work to make things better.” Fortunately, trial in the ACLU lawsuit wrapped up this week, suggesting that immigrants may eventually have something more substantial to enforce their rights.

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Lorelei Laird is a freelance writer specializing in the law, and the only person you know who still has an “I Believe Anita Hill” bumper sticker. Find her at wordofthelaird.com.

How can you measure a law school’s worth, aside from the employment statistics of its graduates? Another telling sign of its success may be its acceptance rate. Generally speaking, law schools with low acceptance rates — that is, law schools that were selective when it came to choosing their entering classes — masterfully weathered the storm over the past decade, keeping their standards high during a time when applications plummeted and entering students’ qualifications sank.

But which law schools were the most selective of them all?

Thanks to 24/7 Wall St., there’s a new ranking for that. Here’s their methodology:

Using data from the ABA, 24/7 Wall St. created an index of three measures of selectivity to identify the 50 hardest law schools to get into.

The first index measure is the acceptance rate, or the number of offer letters a school sent in 2019 as a share of the number of applications. The second is the median LSAT score of newly enrolled students in fall 2019, and the third measure is the median undergraduate GPA of newly enrolled students. We also reviewed the share of students in the class of 2018 who took the bar exam and passed on their first attempt.

Without further ado, here are the top 10 law schools that are the hardest to get into:

10. University of Southern California Gould School of Law
• Acceptance rate: 17.7%
• Applications for fall 2019: 5,648
• Median undergrad GPA of new enrollees: 3.80
• Median LSAT score of new enrollees: 166 out of 180
• Bar exam passage rate: 81.0%

9. Northwestern Pritzker School of Law
• Acceptance rate: 18.0%
• Applications for fall 2019: 5,441
• Median undergrad GPA of new enrollees: 3.85
• Median LSAT score of new enrollees: 169 out of 180
• Bar exam passage rate: 92.0%

8. University of Chicago Law School
• Acceptance rate: 18.6%
• Applications for fall 2019: 4,933
• Median undergrad GPA of new enrollees: 3.90
• Median LSAT score of new enrollees: 170 out of 180
• Bar exam passage rate: 90.3%

7. University of Michigan Law School
• Acceptance rate: 16.6%
• Applications for fall 2019: 5,629
• Median undergrad GPA of new enrollees: 3.81
• Median LSAT score of new enrollees: 169 out of 180
• Bar exam passage rate: 93.8%

6. Columbia Law School
• Acceptance rate: 15.9%
• Applications for fall 2019: 7,193
• Median undergrad GPA of new enrollees: 3.80
• Median LSAT score of new enrollees: 172 out of 180
• Bar exam passage rate: 97.3%

5. University of Virginia School of Law
• Acceptance rate: 14.7%
• Applications for fall 2019: 5,645
• Median undergrad GPA of new enrollees: 3.90
• Median LSAT score of new enrollees: 170 out of 180
• Bar exam passage rate: 95.3%

4. University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School
• Acceptance rate: 14.5%
• Applications for fall 2019: 6,483
• Median undergrad GPA of new enrollees: 3.89
• Median LSAT score of new enrollees: 170 out of 180
• Bar exam passage rate: 92.1%

3. Harvard Law School
• Acceptance rate: 12.5%
• Applications for fall 2019: 7,333
• Median undergrad GPA of new enrollees: 3.89
• Median LSAT score of new enrollees: 173 out of 180
• Bar exam passage rate: 96.5%

2. Stanford Law School
• Acceptance rate: 9.7%
• Applications for fall 2019: 3,908
• Median undergrad GPA of new enrollees: 3.91
• Median LSAT score of new enrollees: 171 out of 180
• Bar exam passage rate: 94.7%

1. Yale Law School
• Acceptance rate: 8.2%
• Applications for fall 2019: 3,198
• Median undergrad GPA of new enrollees: 3.93
• Median LSAT score of new enrollees: 173 out of 180
• Bar exam passage rate: 96.8%

Click here to see the rest of the Top 50.

As you may have guessed, the law schools that are the most difficult to get into are some of the usual suspects, perhaps better described as the elite schools found at the tippy top of the U.S. News rankings (although they’re out of order here). Absent from the list are NYU and Duke, but look at which law school managed to sneak into the top 10 — it’s USC, which is currently ranked No. 17 by U.S. News. Way to go!

Where does your law school stand when it comes to its selectivity? Based on the new 24/7 Wall St. ranking, you may be surprised.

Degree of difficulty: These are 50 of the toughest US law schools to get into [USA Today via 24/7 Wall St.]

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Staci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.

31.1.2020
12:38

by paul bogaert

Zimbabwe Situation not appealing

At a time when large majorities of Americans have lost faith in government, does the fact that the chief justice is presiding over an impeachment trial in which Republican senators have thus far refused to allow witnesses or evidence contribute to the loss of legitimacy of the chief justice, the Supreme Court, and the Constitution?

— Chief Justice John Roberts, reading aloud a question for the House managers asked by Senator Elizabeth Warren that put him in an uncomfortable position on day two of the Senate’s question-and-answer session in Donald Trump’s impeachment trial. Lead House manager Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) responded diplomatically, noting, “I would not say that it contributes to a loss of confidence in the chief justice. I think the chief justice has presided admirably.”

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Staci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.